Williams' remains have been suspended in liquid nitrogen at Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., since the former slugger's death in July 2002. Williams' son, John Henry Williams, had his father placed in cryonic suspension, a deep-freezing process done in hopes that future scientific advances will restore the dead to life.

But contrary to recent news reports, Williams' body is not resting upside down in a liquid nitrogen tank at Alcor. Instead, reports Verducci, his head sits on a shelf in a liquid nitrogen-filled steel can, while his body is in the same room, stored upright in a liquid nitrogen-filled, nine-foot-tall cylindrical steel tank.

The silver can containing Williams' head resembles a lobster pot and is marked in black with Williams' patient I.D. number, A-1949, according to the SI story. Williams' head has been shaved and drilled with holes. Verducci also reports that, before the head was placed in its present location, it was accidentally cracked as many as 10 times due to fluctuating storage temperatures.

"I normally prefer not to be out of the country on vacation when I'm sued. However, from everything I know about law regarding satire, I'm not worried.

"As far as the personal attacks go, when I read `intoxicated or deranged' and `shrill and unstable' in their complaint, I thought for a moment I was a Fox commentator.

"And by the way, a few months ago, I trademarked the word `funny.' So when Fox calls me `unfunny,' they're violating my trademark. I am seriously considering a countersuit."

The Los Angeles County registrar of voters said Schwarzenegger, who lives in Brentwood, voted in six of the statewide and presidential elections going back to 1992. He voted in the 2002 primary and the general election, which included a successful ballot initiative he sponsored on after-school programs and the re-election of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.

But the actor did not return absentee ballots for the 2000 general and primary elections after requesting them, the registrar said, meaning Schwarzenegger twice missed a chance to vote for President Bush. He did not vote in the June 1998 primary, which included a successful initiative banning bilingual education, records show.

And Schwarzenegger missed both the 1996 primary and general elections, which included the presidential campaign of Republican Bob Dole and initiatives on medical marijuana and tax increases on the wealthy. In 1996, Schwarzenegger was promoting the films "Jingle All the Way" and "Eraser" and was filming the movie "Batman & Robin."

Fox News, in a trademark infringement lawsuit filed in Manhattan, claims that it registered the expression "fair and balanced" in 1998. Franken and Penguin, the suit claims, are trying to exploit the trademark to boost sales.

In its fair and balanced way, Fox News refers in its suit to Franken as an "unstable" and "shrill" "C-level commentator" who is "not a well-respected voice in American politics."

The attorneys do concede that Franken "achieved some renown as a comedy writer in the 1970s when he worked for the television program 'Saturday Night Live' " but add he since "has attempted to remake himself into a political commentator" and "is neither a journalist nor a television news personality." (Note the distinction being made between "journalist" and "television news personality.")

"His views lack any serious depth or insight," Fox News sniffed for good measure.

"It is extraordinary that one of the largest media corporations would take such action," Dutton responded late yesterday via a rep. "In trying to suppress Al Franken's book [Fox News Channel owner] News Corporation is undermining the First Amendment principles that protect all media, guaranteeing a free, open and vigorous debate of public issues. The attempt to keep the public from reading Franken's message is un-American and runs contrary to everything this country stands for."

Fox Sues Humorist Al Franken Over Slogan

NEW YORK - Fox News Channel has sued liberal humorist Al Franken and the Penguin Group to stop them from using the phrase "fair and balanced" in the title of his upcoming book.

Filed Monday in Manhattan, the trademark infringement lawsuit seeks a court order forcing Penguin to rename the book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." It also asks for unspecified damages.

Fox News registered "Fair & Balanced" as a trademark in 1995, the suit says.

Franken's "intent is clear - to exploit Fox News' trademark, confuse the public as to the origins of the book and, accordingly, boost sales of the book," the suit said.

Calls to Penguin and Franken's publicist were not immediately returned. The book is due out next month.

TIKRIT, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military Monday launched a major operation in Iraq against fugitive members of Saddam Hussein's regime, a spokesman said. The assault came a day after another U.S. soldier died in hostile action.

Operation Ivy Lightning is the largest coalition deployment in the region since President Bush declared the end of major combat in the Iraq war on May 1, according to Col. Bill MacDonald, a U.S. military spokesman.

I'm tired of hearing 'since the end of major combat' numbers which fail to include "non-hostile" deaths (including friendly fire incidents) as well as those ~200 US-side killings before the war.

Using this Rove-style point of reference obscures those killed (at least on 'our' side...) prior to GWB's showboating propaganda. As of today, 299 are dead excluding Iraqis and journalists.

"The General says for the first time he is now going to make an effort to try and let the troops have two weeks leave to come home to the United States from their deployment in Iraq, visit their families, take two weeks off, and then go back to the war."

'Bring us home': GIs flood US with war-weary emails

Susan Schuman is angry. Her GI son is serving in the Iraqi town of Samarra, at the heart of the 'Sunni triangle', where American troops are killed with grim regularity.
Breaking the traditional silence of military families during time of war, Schuman knows what she wants - and who she blames for the danger to her son, Justin. 'I want them to bring our troops home. I am appalled at Bush's policies. He has got us into a terrible mess,' she said.

Schuman may just be the tip of an iceberg. She lives in Shelburne Falls, a small town in Massachusetts, and says all her neighbours support her view. 'I don't know anyone around here who disagrees with me,' she said.

Schuman's views are part of a growing unease back home at the rising casualty rate in Iraq, a concern coupled with deep anger at President George W. Bush's plans to cut army benefits for many soldiers. Criticism is also coming directly from soldiers risking their lives under the guns of Saddam Hussein's fighters, and they are using a weapon not available to troops in previous wars: the internet.

Through emails and chatrooms a picture is emerging of day-to-day gripes, coupled with ferocious criticism of the way the war has been handled. They paint a vivid picture of US army life that is a world away from the sanitised official version.

In a message posted on a website last week, one soldier was brutally frank. 'Somewhere down the line, we became an occupation force in [Iraqi] eyes. We don't feel like heroes any more,' said Private Isaac Kindblade of the 671st Engineer Company.

Protest Groups Planning for Republican Convention

One night last week, dozens of young people — anarchists, environmentalists, pacifists, and just about every other ist out there — crammed together in a Brooklyn storefront to brainstorm how they would take advantage of a unique opportunity a year away.

The man they view as their archnemesis, President Bush, will visit their turf next summer for the 2004 Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden, a springboard for Mr. Bush's re-election campaign and for what dissenters say will be protests on a scale not seen in the city in dozens of years.

Some relatives of people killed on 9/11 say they are considering joining protests or organizing their own, out of a feeling that the Republicans, by holding the convention in New York so close to the anniversary of the attacks, are exploiting it.

Some protesters were galvanized by news reports, which state officials have denied, that the cornerstone for the rebuilding of ground zero would be laid during the convention.

Officials Warn of Turmoil on Election Night

As the list of candidates seeking to replace Gov. Gray Davis grew to nearly 200 names, officials warned Sunday of election night gridlock, with the outcome likely to be unclear days after the Oct. 7 vote.

Officials in Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's office said they were still trying to determine what the recall will cost. Last week, Shelley had estimated the price at $53 million to $66 million, a figure that may now rise in light of the large number of candidates on the ballot.

In some counties with paper-based voting systems, such as Contra Costa and Sonoma, the large number of candidates will require three or more cards, making it necessary for the ballots to be read by hand to ensure each voter did not choose more than one alternative to Davis, election officials said.

Steve Weir, Contra Costa County's registrar of voters, said results in his county would not be ready until "maybe ... about 5 p.m. Thursday [Oct. 9]," two days after the polls close.

If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a forty-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couple fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances. The country we know and love today was built by those victories for liberalism -- with the support of the American people.

When asked how long the U.S. occupation would last, Bush said "as long as it takes to win this war on terror."

U.S. Indicts Porn Sellers, Vowing Extensive Attack
Charges against a Valley video company and two executives signal that fighting obscenity has become a high priority for Atty. Gen. Ashcroft.

The Justice Department on Thursday charged a North Hollywood wholesaler of adult films with violating federal obscenity laws, launching the first of what it promised would be a wave of criminal cases against purveyors of pornography.

The 10-count federal grand jury indictment against Extreme Associates and its executives, Robert Zicari and Janet Romano of Northridge, raising alarm among adult entertainment companies in the San Fernando Valley, which is considered the capital of the nation's multibillion-dollar pornography industry.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft promised upon taking office that he would crack down on the distributors of adult entertainment material such as movies, magazines and Web sites, much as his Reagan administration predecessor Edwin Meese III did in the 1980s.

With the government's Microsoft Corp. antitrust trial completed and the war on terrorism well underway, pornography has worked its way to the top of Ashcroft's agenda.

"Today's indictment marks an important step in the Department of Justice's strategy for attacking the proliferation of adult obscenity," Ashcroft said. The department will "continue to focus our efforts on targeted obscenity prosecutions that will deter others from producing and distributing obscene material."

Ashcroft Objects to Lenient Jurists
When judges impose terms shorter than called for under federal guidelines, the attorney general wants to know.

WASHINGTON — In a drive to challenge lenient judges, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft says he wants to be alerted whenever a federal judge imposes a criminal sentence that is less than called for by U.S. guidelines.

In a July 28 memo to U.S. attorneys' offices across the nation, Ashcroft said he had a "solemn obligation" to ensure that the laws setting punishments for federal crimes were "faithfully, fairly and consistently enforced."

Aides to the attorney general said he was seeking accurate data on sentencing patterns. It would be troubling if judges in Massachusetts and Arizona, for example, were regularly imposing different punishments for the same federal crimes, they said.

Ashcroft also wants to know of instances in which a judge's sentence represents a "downward departure" from U.S. guidelines so the Justice Department can file an appeal with a higher court.

Even the state's most loyal protectors -- well-practiced at reminding critics that California has the world's fifth-largest economy, as well as its most advanced multicultural society -- seem shaken.

"I have defended California in season and out, but I'm throwing in the towel this time," says Kevin Starr, the state librarian and author of several California history books.

"We sort of deserve it this time, don't we? You've got a leading candidate deciding or not deciding on Leno. This is a society melting down into deliberate self-parody."
--------------------------------------------
A movie star entered the governor's race on the show of a TV comedian, upsetting the plans of former L.A. Mayor Riordan -- a lawyer who made a fortune and has spent much of it turning himself into a well-known politician -- who might otherwise have been a candidate.

Perhaps, some suggest, California's image troubles result not from an epidemic of insanity but from a contagious preoccupation:

Vanity.

Traditionally the Treasury, like the C.I.A., stands somewhat above the political fray. Externally, it is supposed to provide objective data that Congress and the public can use to evaluate administration proposals. Internally, long-serving Treasury analysts traditionally ride herd on political appointees, warning them when their proposals are ill conceived or irresponsible.

But under the Bush administration the Treasury takes its marching orders from White House political operatives. As The New Republic points out, when John Snow meets with Karl Rove, the meetings take place in Mr. Rove's office.

To the general public, the most obvious consequence of this subservience has been Treasury's meek acquiescence in an economic policy that hasn't produced any jobs, but has produced a $450 billion deficit. Insiders, however, are if anything even more dismayed by the erosion of Treasury's intellectual integrity — an erosion exemplified by its denial and deception on the subject of tax cuts.

Here's the story: Treasury has an elaborate computer model designed to evaluate who benefits and who loses from any proposed change in tax laws. For example, the model can be used to estimate how much families in the middle of the income distribution will gain from a tax cut, or the share of that tax cut that goes to the top 1 percent of families. In the 1990's the results of such analyses were routinely made public.

But since George W. Bush came into power, the department has suppressed most of that information, releasing only partial, misleading tables. The purpose of this suppression, of course, is to conceal the extent to which Mr. Bush's tax cuts concentrate their bounty on families with very high incomes. In a stinging recent article in Tax Notes, the veteran tax analyst Martin Sullivan writes of the debate over the 2001 cut that "Treasury's analysis was so embarrassingly poor and so biased, we thought we had seen the last of its kind." But worse was to come.

Howard Dean is generating something no Democrat in recent memory has: excitement. Not just partisan cheerleading, but real honest-to-goodness shake-shit-up excitement.

In the last six months he's gone from nobody to the Guy to Beat. It started in February when the Bush administration was beating the war drum to a deafening crescendo, striking fear in the heart of any Democrat who dared withhold support.

Then a largely unknown former governor from a small New England state, Dean stood up before a meeting of the Democratic National Committee and questioned why the Dems on the Hill were cowardly acquiescing to the president's war aims. This, followed by, "I'm Howard Dean, and I'm here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party!" The crowd went ballistic. At long last, a Democratic presidential candidate with a pair of balls. Hallelujah!

---------------------------------------------

Although he hails from the tie-dyed land of Phish and Ben and Jerry's, Dean is no Birkenstock liberal. He's a hard-nosed fiscal conservative who inherited a massive budget deficit when he took over as Vermont governor and turned it into a sizable surplus.

He's pro-choice, but also pro-death penalty. He signed the civil union bill into law--after the State Supreme Court essentially left him no choice. He's been awarded an "A" by the National Rifle Association for his refusal to toughen Vermont's lax gun control regulations. And slowly but surely Dean achieved universal healthcare coverage for almost every child in Vermont. The statehouse press corps that covered him as governor openly admire his ability to know the pulse of the electorate without polling or focus groups.

"Howard Dean and the Great Middle, always in the same place," says a Burlington, Vt., reporter who covered him as governor. "And that's a gift."

---------------------------------------------

The Dean campaign now claims 255,173 volunteers. They are expecting 450,000 by the end of September and 1 million by Dec. 31. By the end of the primaries next spring, Dean is shooting for 2 million volunteers and another million on top of that by the time the general election rolls around in November 2004. If all goes according to plan--and granted that's a very big if--Howard Dean will have awakened a long-sleeping giant: the American electorate.

Karl Rove is a smart man. A smart man in Karl Rove's shoes would be crapping himself right about now.

Vandals hit several Starbucks in SF

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Police are investigating a coordinated attack on at least 17 Starbucks outlets in downtown San Francisco.

The vandals spread glue and posted official-looking "For Lease'' and "Closed'' signs on store windows, according to Dewayne Tully, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department. He said the vandalism took place between 11 p.m. Monday night and 4:45 a.m. Tuesday night when the stores were closed.

Starbucks Corp. confirmed that eight stores were vandalized. The Seattle-based company said there were no injuries or serious property damage, and all the stores are open for business as usual.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the vandalism, but police believe it was a carefully planned attack by a group, Tully said.

"The motive is unclear at this point,'' Tully said. "It could be an anti-franchise group.''

Police are questioning one possible witness and are encouraging others to report any information.

''The government should have had thousands and thousands of MPs waiting and ready to go in immediately afterwards. They planned meticulously how to take over the country, but I don't think they planned very well how to run it once it was taken,'' said Lance Cpl. Derek McGee, 26.

He came home to his fiance and family in Rhinebeck, and will return to work for UPS in Kingston in September.

''We're an infantry unit and they kind of used us as an occupying force,'' said Sgt. Chris Masterson, 25, a Wappingers Falls resident who left his pursuit of a business degree at Dutchess Community College to serve.

''I know we went in there and we hit hard, we hit fast and we did a whole lot of good. Where it went bad was way up above us -- the political side of it, establishing the government,'' he said. ''It kind of came to a screeching halt.''

American jets killed Iraqi troops with firebombs – similar to the controversial napalm used in the Vietnam War – in March and April as Marines battled toward Baghdad.

Marine Corps fighter pilots and commanders who have returned from the war zone have confirmed dropping dozens of incendiary bombs near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris River. The explosions created massive fireballs.

"We napalmed both those (bridge) approaches," said Col. Randolph Alles in a recent interview. He commanded Marine Air Group 11, based at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, during the war. "Unfortunately, there were people there because you could see them in the (cockpit) video.

"They were Iraqi soldiers there. It's no great way to die," he added. How many Iraqis died, the military couldn't say. No accurate count has been made of Iraqi war casualties.

During the war, Pentagon spokesmen disputed reports that napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed two years ago.

Apparently the spokesmen were drawing a distinction between the terms "firebomb" and "napalm." If reporters had asked about firebombs, officials said yesterday they would have confirmed their use.

What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons.

Carly Simon will finally reveal who's so vain to a man with major connections in the media world -- should he ever decide to break his vow of secrecy.

But Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC sports and NBC Olympics, said he'll never tell once Simon divulges to him the subject of her 1972 song "You're So Vain" after a private performance in about two weeks. Ebersol won the information with a $50,000 bid in a charity auction; he also gets a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

"It won't be hard to keep a secret," he said on NBC's "Today" show Tuesday morning.

Ebersol said Simon gave him one clue about the man's identity that she said he could reveal: He has the letter "e" in his name.

US military casualties from the occupation of Iraq have been more than twice the number most Americans have been led to believe because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents, suicides and other non-combat deaths in the ranks that have gone largely unreported in the media.

Since May 1, when President George Bush declared the end of major combat operations, 52 American soldiers have been killed by hostile fire, according to Pentagon figures quoted in almost all the war coverage. But the total number of US deaths from all causes is much higher: 112.

The other unreported cost of the war for the US is the number of American wounded, 827 since Operation Iraqi Freedom began.

Unofficial figures are in the thousands. About half have been injured since the president's triumphant appearance on board the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln at the beginning of May. Many of the wounded have lost limbs.

The figures are politically sensitive. The number of American combat deaths since the start of the war is 166 - 19 more than the death toll in the first Gulf war.

The passing of that benchmark last month erased the perception, popular at the time Baghdad fell, that the US had scored an easy victory.

In fact, the total death toll this time is 248 - including accidents and suicides - and as the number of non-combat deaths and serious injuries becomes more widely known, the erosion of public confidence is likely to continue, posing a threat to Mr Bush's prospects of re-election, which at the beginning of May had seemed a foregone conclusion.

Military observers say it is unusual, even in a "low-intensity" guerrilla war such as the situation seen in Iraq, for non-combat deaths to outnumber combat casualties.

Britney Spears just about bares it all for the September issue of British Elle, wearing nothing but the shortest shorts imaginable, unless you also count the jewels in her pierced belly button.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, have signaled to the White House that they intend to step down even if President Bush is reelected, setting the stage for a substantial reshaping of the administration's national security team that has remained unchanged through the September 2001 terrorist attacks, two wars and numerous other crises.

Armitage recently told national security adviser Condoleezza Rice that he and Powell will leave on Jan. 21, 2005, the day after the next presidential inauguration, sources familiar with the conversation said. Powell has indicated to associates that a commitment made to his wife, rather than any dismay at the administration's foreign policy, is a key factor in his desire to limit his tenure to one presidential term.

Rice and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz are the leading candidates to replace Powell, according to sources inside and outside the administration. Rice appears to have an edge because of her closeness to the president, though it is unclear whether she would be interested in running the State Department's vast bureaucracy.

CRAWFORD, Texas (Los Angeles Times)— President Bush is in excellent health and "fit for duty," his doctors said Saturday, adding that all data from Bush's annual physical "suggest that he will remain so for the rest of his presidency."

Saudi Government Provided Aid to 9/11 Hijackers, Sources Say
By Josh Meyer
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 2, 2003

WASHINGTON -- The 27 classified pages of a congressional report about Sept. 11 depict a Saudi government that not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups through suspect charities and other fronts, according to sources familiar with the document.

One U.S. official who has read the classified section said it describes "very direct, very specific links" between Saudi officials, two of the San Diego-based hijackers and other potential co-conspirators "that cannot be passed off as rogue, isolated or coincidental."

Said another official: "It's really damning. What it says is that not only Saudi entities or nationals are implicated in 9/11, but the [Saudi] government" as well.

------------------------------------

Some U.S. officials disagree sharply over whether key members of the Saudi royal family knowingly took action to support terrorist activity or simply showed a pattern of what one official called "willful ignorance."

------------------------------------

However one interprets the 27 pages, all who have read them agreed on one thing: If they are made public, they will prove extremely embarrassing not only to the Saudi government but also to the U.S. government, particularly to the FBI for missing so many clues pointing to Riyadh and for not aggressively investigating them, sources said.

"If this comes out, it will blow the top off the relations with [the Saudi] government because the American people will just be outraged," said one source familiar with the report.

"People don't know how much is in there and how specific it is," the source said. "The public hasn't gotten anywhere near the meat of it."

The Next Casualty: Bill of Rights?
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

September 13, 2001

Tuesday's onslaughts on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are being likened to Pearl Harbor. The comparison is just. The attacks were near miracles of logistical calculation, timing, execution and devastation inflicted on the targets.

There may be another similarity. The possibility of a Japanese attack in early December 1941 was known to U.S. naval intelligence and to President Roosevelt. On Tuesday, derision at the failure of U.S. intelligence was widespread. The Washington Post quoted an unnamed top official at the National Security Council as saying, "We don't know anything here. We're watching CNN too." Are we to believe that the $30-billion annual intelligence budget, immense electronic eavesdropping capacity, thousands of agents around the world, produced nothing in the way of a warning?

In fact, the editor of the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said he heard three weeks ago that Osama bin Laden, now the prime suspect, planned "very, very big attacks against American interests."

--------------------------------------

The targets abroad will be all the usual suspects—the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, who started off as creatures of U.S. intelligence. The target at home will be the Bill of Rights.

--------------------------------------

Tuesday did not offer a flattering exhibition of America's leaders. President Bush gave a timid and stilted initial reaction in Sarasota, Fla., then disappeared for an hour before resurfacing in at a base in Barksdale, La., where he gave another flaccid address with every appearance of being on tranquilizers. He was then flown to a bunker in Nebraska, before someone finally had the wit to suggest that the best place for the U.S. president at time of national emergency is the Oval Office.

--------------------------------------

"Freedom," said Bush in Sarasota, "was attacked this morning by a faceless coward." That properly represents the stupidity and blindness of almost all of Tuesday's mainstream political commentary. By contrast, the commentary on economic consequences was informative and sophisticated. Worst hit: the insurance industry. Likely outfall in the short term: higher energy prices, a further drop in global stock markets. Bush will have no trouble in raiding the famous lock-box, using Social Security trust funds to give more money to the Defense Department.

Three planes are successfully steered into three of America's most conspicuous buildings and America's response will be to put more money in missile defense as a way of bolstering the economy.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said she feels "personal responsibility" for the flap over President Bush's State of the Union address, which included a discredited claim that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Africa.

On July 14, during a joint Oval Office news conference with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Bush was asked why he made the uranium assertion even though U.S. intelligence agencies had questioned its accuracy.

Bush replied that the CIA had cleared the speech, then added: "The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

The last sentence in that sequence simply can't be squared with the record of what happened in Iraq. In fact, the inspectors re-entered Hussein's domain in November after a four-year absence, quickly expanded their operations and worked until the eve of the U.S. invasion in March.

You could say that the inspectors were able to return only because of intense U.S. pressure, that they made no breakthroughs, and that they sometimes complained about a lack of Iraqi cooperation. All those statements would be right. But you couldn't say, as Bush did, that Hussein never let them in at all - not if you wanted to stay on the fair side of the truth.

-------------------------------------

Norman Ornstein, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, agrees that Bush's history of malaprops have so lowered public expectations that he can commit a gaffe with little fallout. But he adds that questions of credibility strike directly at Bush's greatest political strength - his reputation as a straight shooter.

"The question is, when does that image slip, and then everything, no matter how small, becomes a big deal," he said. "We're not there yet. But now for the first time there's some tarnish out there."

State of Decline

From smog to silicon, from the sexual revolution to the tax revolt, the future has usually arrived in California first. Now the Golden State is degenerating into a banana republic. Can the nation be far behind?

The recall isn't just a case of hardball politics. It's also a grand act of evasion: in the face of a severe fiscal crisis, voters are being invited to focus not on hard choices but on personality. Replacing Gray Davis with someone more likable isn't going to pay the bills.

Thanks to the end of the tech boom and the bursting of the tech bubble — with an assist from energy price gouging — California's budget has plunged into deficit. State and local governments faced with deficits normally respond with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. That's what Mayor Michael Bloomberg has done in New York, it's what Gov. Pete Wilson did in California's last fiscal crisis, in the early 1990's, and it's what Mr. Davis proposed earlier this year.

But California's Constitution requires that budgets be passed in the State Legislature by a two-thirds' margin — which gives the Republican minority blocking power. And that minority has refused either to vote for any tax increase, or to make realistic proposals for spending cuts.

-------------------------------

...is Washington any better than Sacramento?

Outside the Social Security system, the federal government is now running a deficit equal to a third of its spending — worse than California. If the federal government isn't in crisis, that's only because — unlike state governments — it isn't obliged to balance its budget each year. And so far bond markets have been willing to give the feds the benefit of the doubt.

But the people now running the country are every bit as irresponsible as those blocking a serious response to California's crisis. And sooner or later that irresponsibility will have the usual consequences. California, here we come.

Even as the parties planned strategy, the field of potential replacement candidates for Davis mushroomed: To date, a total of 123 Californians have taken out papers to run for governor in the recall, according to the Secretary of State's Office.

Issa, who served two stints in the military, first as an enlisted man and later as an officer, has said that he was an Army computer research and development specialist. In a 1995 interview, he said that as an officer he had spent four years in the New Mexico desert perfecting electronic warfare techniques that were later used in the 1991 Gulf War.

His military records, however, list Issa's postings during that period as Ft. Riley, Kan., and Ft. Ord, Calif. Those records and Issa's 1980 Army separation form make no mention of computer training or computer specialty.

------------------------------------------

During his 1998 campaign for the Senate, at a time when he was trying to link his candidacy to the legacy of former president Richard Nixon, Issa's campaign literature said he had been a member of Nixon's security detail.

Issa had previously claimed attendance at the 1971 World Series as part of Nixon's security. Records show that Nixon did not attend the 1971 World Series, said Susan Naulty, archivist at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda.

In recent comments to The Times, Issa has stood by his claim of having served on Nixon's security detail, but has sidestepped the World Series claim, which has not been repeated in the current campaign.

------------------------------------------

Issa has often recalled his rags-to-riches rise in the business world. Issa's campaign Web site touts an achievement that seems to symbolize his story: "In 1994, Inc. Magazine recognized Darrell Issa as Entrepreneur of the Year."

In fact, Issa has never won the prestigious national award. The founders of Outback Steakhouse took the magazine's top "Entrepreneur of the Year" honors in 1994.

------------------------------------------

On Jan. 16, 1973, Issa pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of possession of an unregistered gun. A magistrate fined him $100, put him on probation and ordered him to pay $107 in court costs. At the time, Issa was a student at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Mich. The arrest was first reported by the Adrian Daily Telegram on July 16.

Asked earlier this month about that arrest, Issa told a Times reporter that the gun was an "unloaded, never-fired, in-the-box, little teeny pistol" and said it wasn't his, although he declined to say whose it was.

Public records obtained by The Times show that when arrested, Issa was carrying a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol with seven bullets in its ammunition clip, as well as 44 bullets and a tear-gas gun.

"If there was any mistake on any bio, I wish somebody would point it out to me so we can clarify what is a small, honest error."

"That's from something years before, from a misquote, er, you know, interpretation, years before I even ran for office."

"There are details and details and details that have been used against me that are minutiae."

"Gray's job is to get you to ask 30-year-old questions. If you want to be a shill for Gray Davis' opposition questions, go ahead. We've moved on."

Al Qaeda Planning More Hijackings, Officials Warn
By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer

U.S. officials said yesterday that they have learned of credible threats of possible new airline suicide hijackings by terrorists planned for the latter part of the summer.

The information was developed in recent interviews with one or more high-level al Qaeda captives and corroborated separately by other means, including electronic intercepts, officials said. They described the possible scenarios as similar to the hijackings of four U.S. airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, that were crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in western Pennsylvania.

"The U.S. intelligence community has received information related to al Qaeda's continued interest in using commercial aviation here in the United States and abroad to further their cause," said Department of Homeland Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "The Department of Homeland Security issued an advisory regarding this information over the weekend to the appropriate airline and security personnel."

It's not official yet, but she's off and running. That was the message at Arianna Huffington's home in posh Brentwood, Calif., on Sunday afternoon, where several dozen political activists and advisors gathered to hear the author and Salon columnist make her case for jumping into the race to recall California Gov. Gray Davis. The only thing that would keep Huffington out of what is shaping up as an electoral free-for-all would be the sudden entry of a major Democratic rival to Davis -- and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the only likely such 800-pound gorilla, is still rejecting entreaties to rescue the party from the rapidly melting Davis.

"If Feinstein runs, I won't," Huffington told the Sunday gathering. "This campaign is to win, not to be a spoiler and hand the state over to the Republicans."

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. troops sifting through the wreckage of the house in Mosul where Saddam Hussein's two sons were killed found Uday Hussein's briefcase, which contained $400,000 in U.S. currency and 30 million Iraqi dinars, or about $21,400.

Uday's briefcase also contained Viagra, a condom, packaged underwear, shirts, cologne and a "tacky tie," according to a government source familiar with the inventory.

The vote will be a Yes/No on "Do you want Davis recalled?"

If you vote "Yes", you will then be allowed to choose from a list of candidates that includes anyone with $3500 and 65 signatures. This will be a big list.

Now let's say 55% of the voting public says "Yes" (and 45% say "No"), giving a majority to the recall of Gray Davis. Then let's say this "majority" goes on to vote for who they want to replace Davis like so:

54% - Tom
27% - Dick
13% - Harry
5% - Jane

Tom wins. Even though the 45% of voters who chose "No" on the recall were prevented from choosing the new governor. This is because a "No" vote on the recall will not be the same as voting FOR Gray Davis, which is the intention of a "No" vote (Voting against recalling Gray Davis is the same as a vote of confidence in him). If a "No" vote were the same as voting for Davis, the percentages would break down like so:

45% - Gray Davis
30% - Tom
15% - Dick
7% - Harry
3% - Jane

The Republicans, after buying an October California election, have now rigged that election in court so that their Second Place candidate will win. Critics have lauded the situation in California as proof that direct Democracy doesn't work, but there is nothing Democratic about what is happening there if the vote is rigged to ignore the true majority vote.

U.S. links Iraq war to 9/11 terror strike
Murky intelligence key: Wolfowitz

TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has directly linked the war on Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, signalling another shift in Washington's defence of a conflict that continues to claim American lives.

Wolfowitz, in a series of interviews on U.S. television networks yesterday, appeared to ignore intelligence reports, which have discredited links between Iraq and Al Qaeda and the war on terrorism.

He sought to defend President George W. Bush's administration against charges that it had misled Americans on the threat posed by deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, saying the government cannot wait for "murky" intelligence to crystallize because it may be too late.

"The battle to secure the peace in Iraq is now the central battle on the war on terrorism," Wolfowitz said on Meet the Press.

"Stop and think, if in 2001, or in 2000, or in 1999, we had gone to war in Afghanistan to deal with Osama bin Laden, and we had tried to say it's because he's planning to kill 3,000 people in New York, people would have said, you don't have any proof of that," he said.

"I think the lesson of Sept. 11 is that you can't wait until proof after the fact.

"It surprises me sometimes that people have forgotten so soon what Sept. 11, I think, should have taught us about terrorism," he added.

"And that's what this is all about," he said.

This afternoon, Vice President Dick Cheney will raise $250,000 from a handful of special interest contributors at a luncheon in Columbia, South Carolina. As of 11:30 am, 6,412 Americans have contributed $335,124.88 to the Dean Team v. Bush-Cheney Challenge.

Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates. July 24-25, 2003. N=1,002 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"From what you've seen or heard in the news, do you believe that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was harboring al Qaeda terrorists and helping them to develop chemical weapons, or not?"

Yes 72%
No 17%
Don't Know 11%

TIKRIT, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. forces early Sunday raided three farm houses in Saddam Hussein's ancestral hometown of Tikrit where officials said intelligence indicated Saddam's security chief -- or possibly the deposed dictator himself -- had recently been.

An official in Baghdad told CNN the security chief was not found at any of the locations and that no one was taken into custody.

Another U.S. military source, this one in Tikrit itself, told CNN the raids were based on reliable intelligence that Saddam likely had been at the farms before the raids.

The official told CNN the military believes it has Saddam "on the run," that he is in the Tikrit area and is changing his location every two to four hours.

"I want the folks here in California to know that we are not going to have another Democrat on the ballot. I think that is the single biggest message I can give today. So if you're a California voter and you want to vote to recall Gray Davis, you are not going to have an option but a bunch of right-wing conservatives on the ballot," McAuliffe said.

Really, Terry, is that so? Sorry, but now the cat's out of the bag. Based on multiple conversations, PW has learned that these two Clinton buddies have been cooking up a plan to spook every other Dem out of the race early so that Panetta can implement his "white-horse" strategy when the time is, as one source said, "appropriate." Well, it will never be appropriate. A hardcore partisan beltway brawler is exactly the wrong prescription for what ails California. Any Panetta-brand outsider will drag the already polarized state government to new lows in non-cooperation, and Panetta himself would be the worst choice of all.

Even if Panetta were somehow to win, California's problems would become far worse, not better, on his watch. His autocratic White House ways ain't gonna fly with either the minority Republicans or the majority Dems. You think budget woes are bad? Try pitched battles that would make Davis giggle and blush. So Gang of Four, put your heads together and make a decision which of you will run, make that rough call to Terry, and Bill Clinton, and State Chair Art Torres -- and tell them to get Panetta out of this race. Now. Because if Panetta wins, we can kiss majority Democratic rule in the State of California goodbye, probably sooner rather than later. And if Panetta insists on running, then one of the Gang of Four better step into the fray anyway and save us from ourselves. Enjoy your legacy Leon, because we need a public servant to get us out this mess, not a DC-style partisan disaster.

Musician banned from bookstore after criticizing Bush's legs
By the Associated Press

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. -- A Borders Books & Music store has banned a Baltimore singer-songwriter from performing there after she made an unflattering comment about President Bush's physique during a concert at the store last week.

Julia Rose, who is also a fitness advocate, told the audience, "George Bush has chicken legs. He needs to pump some iron."

Rose said she has made the same comment at other Borders stores.

"In fact, the audience in Fredericksburg laughed when I said this," she told The Free Lance-Star newspaper. "The reaction was nothing different than typical crowds I've had."

Amy Korsun, area marketing manager for the Michigan-based bookstore chain, confirmed Wednesday that Rose has been banned from performing at the Fredericksburg store. She said Rose will be allowed to continue playing at other Borders stores in Virginia. She declined to say why Rose was banned from the Fredericksburg store.

Rose said she's mystified by the reaction.

"I never said anything about Bush being a bad president or anything," she said. "I was just poking fun at his scrawny frame."

New Rule: NO DO-OVERS!

Once you elect an official, unless he runs off with public funds or gets caught with kiddie porn, you're stuck with him. He's the governor. Not some dude you married in Las Vegas.

What is going on here in California (if you're lucky enough NOT to be following this) is that the economy turned, so we're getting rid of the governor. But what if we drive him from office and the economy still doesn't get better? I guess we'll have to burn him. And if that doesn't work, then we'll kill his dog.

Yes, in baseball, when the team stinks, you fire the manager. But you don't fire him because it rains, and you don't fire him between innings - and replace him with a Viennese weightlifter.

Here's why the economy turned:

The dot-com bubble burst. Obviously on the orders of Gray Davis.

The airline industry collapsed, just as Gray Davis planned.

We fought two wars overseas, playing right into Gray Davis' hands.

And Dick Cheney's friends at Enron gamed the energy market and ripped the state off for billions. So you can see the problem. Gray Davis.

And the obvious solution: a Viennese weightlifter. Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger - finally, a candidate who can explain the administration's positions on civil liberties in the original German.

Not that I'm saying I love Gray Davis. Being enthusiastic about Gray Davis would be like saying your favorite food is straw. But he fought for his country in Vietnam and won a fair election and he's entitled to his term. Maybe he's a crappy governor, but he was the one elected by the voters who bothered to show up at the polls. Their efforts should not be undone by disgruntled shoppers signing a petition on their way out of Target.

Look, there's still a lot of Democrats with sour grapes over the last presidential election, but they're not collecting petitions to replace George Bush with Bernie Mac.

So while we're trying to export representative democracy to Baghdad, it's time we started believing it in Brentwood - because THAT, My Fellow Americans, is what Jessica Lynch was fighting for!

President Bush signs American flags for workers at Beaver Aerospace and Defense after speaking about jobs and economic growth in Livonia, Michigan, Thursday, July 23, 2003.

Now that Dean is capturing the party's imagination on his own terms, the DLC is crying foul. And From and Reed are using every available opportunity to whack the former governor of Vermont. By their statements over the past two months, From and Reed have shown that the few years their group has spent in the electoral wilderness since the Clinton administration have intensified a process that had already begun in the late '90s: turning the DLC into just another interest group clamoring to have its agenda considered uppermost and its favorite sons promoted, irrespective of any concerns about winning elections.

The group is losing sight of the larger narrative, and assisting its real opposition by attacking Dean. Already, the McGovern-peacenik-Democratic-weakness charge is spreading from DLC articles into the mouths of Republican critics, except the DLC charge is creating a blowback that will damage all Democrats..."

Arabs Shocked by TV Images of Saddam's Sons
Reuters
Friday, July 25, 2003; 2:17 PM

DUBAI (Reuters) - Televised images of the bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons shocked many Arabs on Friday, who said it was un-Islamic to exhibit corpses, however much the brothers were loathed.

Arab and international networks showed the bodies identified as Uday and Qusay, laid out at the makeshift airport morgue, their faces partly rebuilt to repair wounds.

"Although Uday and Qusay are criminals, displaying their corpses like this is disgusting and repulsive. America claims it is civilized but is behaving like a thug," Saudi civil servant Saad Brikan, 42, told Reuters in Riyadh.

Another civil servant Hasan Hammoud, 35, said: "America always spoils its own image by doing something like this. What is the advantage of showing these bodies? Didn't they think about the humanitarian aspect? About their mother and the rest of their family when they see these images?"

The brothers died on Tuesday after U.S. forces lay siege to the villa in northern Iraq where they were hiding.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he ordered their bodies to be shown to convince frightened Iraqi's that Saddam's reign was truly over.

But prominent Saudi cleric Mohsen al-Awajy said: "This has been a dirty war from the beginning and it is difficult for us to find any morals or dignity in the middle of this.

"The Americans want to show the Iraqis that they are achieving their goals...There was no need to show the bodies."

He said while under Islam the bodies should be treated with sanctity, Iraqis would not forget that Uday and Qusay had committed vicious crimes against them.

"We shouldn't forget the pain of the Iraqis. These are just two casualties, and it would be better if their graves were kept secret, otherwise the Iraqis will attack their graves."

Mohammad Emara, an Egyptian Islamist scholar, told Al Jazeera television that displaying the bodies publicly was against Islamic Sharia law.

"Under Islamic law this is rejected. America wanted to boost the morale of its soldiers so it resorted to this illegal act which is denounced by all religions.

"America said during its war on Iraq that displaying pictures of its soldiers who were alive was against the Geneva convention so what about pictures showing disfigured bodies?"

Today, video?

Now the government is releasing video of Saddam's dead sons, since the pictures released yesterday didn't sufficiently convince Iraqis. I am beyond belief here. Those 'grave reservations' that everyone had yesterday don't seem to exist today. That particular line has been breached once and for all, I guess.

What are they going to do tomorrow - Throw the bodies on a truck and drive them around Baghdad? This is beyond ghoulish, and it shows a certain level of desperation in the administration.

And it looks like one of the brothers was shaved of his beard - a big no-no in the Islamic world.

When I went into the clinic last April 30, George Bush was about 50 points ahead of his closest Democratic opponent in next year's Presidential Election. When I finally escaped from the horrible place, less than three weeks late, Bush's job-approval ratings had been cut in half -- and even down into single digits, in some states -- and the Republican Party was panicked and on the run. It was a staggering reversal in a very short time, even shorter than it took for his equally crooked father to drop from 93 percent approval, down to as low as 43 percent and even 41 percent in the last doomed days of the first doomed Bush Administration. After that, he was Bill Clinton's punching bag.

Richard Nixon could tell us a lot about peaking too early. He was a master of it, because it beat him every time. He never learned and neither did Bush the Elder.

But wow! This goofy child president we have on our hands now. He is demonstrably a fool and a failure, and this is only the summer of '03. By the summer of 2004, he might not even be living in the White House. Gone, gone, like the snows of yesteryear.

The Rumsfield-Cheney axis has self-destructed right in front of our eyes, along with the once-proud Perle-Wolfowitz bund that is turning to wax. They somehow managed to blow it all, like a gang of kids on a looting spree, between January and July, or even less. It is genuinely incredible. The U.S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap War in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of Corrupt Brits despises us. We are losers, and that is the one unforgiveable sin in America.

Beyond that, we have lost the respect of the world and lost two disastrous wars in three years. Afghanistan is lost, Iraq is a permanent war Zone, our national Economy is crashing all around us, the Pentagon's "war strategy" has failed miserably, nobody has any money to spend, and our once-mighty U.S. America is paralyzed by Mutinies in Iraq and even Fort Bragg.

The American nation is in the worst condition I can remember in my lifetime, and our prospects for the immediate future are even worse. I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it. Our highway system is crumbling, our police are dishonest, our children are poor, our vaunted Social Security, once the envy of the world, has been looted and neglected and destroyed by the same gang of ignorant greed-crazed bastards who brought us Vietnam, Afghanistan, the disastrous Gaza Strip and ignominious defeat all over the world.

The Stock Market will never come back, our Armies will never again be No. 1, and our children will drink filthy water for the rest of our lives.

The Bush family must be very proud of themselves today, but I am not. Big Darkness, soon come. Take my word for it.

DR. THOMPSON IS BACK WITH US NOW, AND READY TO RUMBLE. HE IS FREE OF THE HIDEOUS PAIN THAT HAS PLAGUED HIM AND HIS LOVED ONES SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL. BUT IT IS GONE NOW. THINGS HAVE CHANGED.